Secret - strong enough for a man, good enough for a woman

The Beatles song "Do you want to know a secret," holds special meaning now.

You see, for roughly 10 weeks now I've had a secret I've wanted to shout from every corner of the compound. It was one of those secrets that makes you hop up and down like a 3-year-old doing the pee-pee dance in the middle of a grocery store. Every once in a while you begin to blurt out the details, but catch yourself, slapping your hands over your pie hole, catching the words before they prison break through your loose lips.

That was me for those 10-weeks, hands clapped to my trap to keep this big secret from getting out on the World Wide Web.

You see, we're having a freeloader, a moocher, a cash cow, a munchkin, a fish (as my cousin called it when seeing our ultrasound pic this weekend), a runt, all better known as a baby.

That's right, folks, we finally decided we were mature enough to handle raising a kid ... if you define mature as likely to give a baby a fifth of Cuervo chased by a cup of Benedryl so us parental units can go watch the latest Judd Apatow movie without the moving paper weight, then, yeah, we feel mature enough to mold someone's mind.

This info is likely about as new as Member's Only jackets and bell bottoms since Wife and I have already told some of you, or you've spoken to my Pop who kept this secret for all of two weeks. Thanks Pop, I bet on you lasting all 8 weeks. Those loose lips cost me an extra week of changing diapers - the loaded ones if you catch my drift (come by after a dinner of mushed peas and apricots, you'll get a heckuva drift, I'm sure). You win again, Wife, enjoy y0ur week off from doing diapers. At least it's just one week of diaper duty (dooty), then Wife reclaims her job. Right?

We debated when to tell folks, since we both read that the first trimester - see, I know my baby shit and I'll take this time to thank the book "The Expectant Father," which has taught me many other things that dudes really shouldn't know about (skip the pictorial on c-sections guys, you'll thank me later) - was the touchiest. So our first inkling was to wait before delivering our news. After receiving advice some advice, Wife and I decided to let our parental units and siblings in on our secret with one caveat, they couldn't tell a soul unless we gave them express permission. To my units, express permission means tell folks up in Idyllwild; a cousin in Cleveland who was sworn to secrecy and didn't let our news out, not even to her daughters, mother, brother or even husband; his brothers (my uncles); and their neighbors. If you ask me, it appears two people are extremely excited to be grandparents, and I can't blame them. But we'll see how excited they are when we dump the moocher off with them and continue on to Vegas. Don't doubt us folks, we'll do it. So if you don't want a screaming 3-month-old for four or five days, don't cross us. We play as dirty as the diapers you'll be change during that span.

The Charger fans paid us a visit in late August and didn't catch on when Wife often changed the subject when the baby topic came up. She was so good at turning the question around I thought she was running for office. Hillary couldn't carry Wife's jock in debate now that I've seen her deftly handle our inquiring friends. We gave them the news this past weekend at - appropriately enough - the Charger game. My aunts and uncles heard the news - officially - the night before. We waited until the end of the evening to spill the beans mostly to make my Units squirm with giddy anticipation. To make matters better, Wife ordered a glass of wine with dinner and appeared to drink it so the relatives thought either it was all just one big rumor that we'd be pumping out a fish or Wife was just a lush who needed her vino every night. It was up to me to down her wine, plus mine so things looked natural and would keep the rest of the table guessing. It worked like a charm until Dear Ol' Ma, her voice channeling the devil with throaty growl and venom dripping from her jowls, threatened to stuff my bowl of linguini with clam sauce up my nose if we didn't tell. I had my shot to break the news to the aunts and uncles in early September at another appropriate site, a baseball game, but I held my own as I was badger fodder and kept my trap shut. Wife, incidentally, was didn't make the trip, otherwise we would have broken the news that night, or at the very least dangle enough information for the family to draw their own conclusions because we're mean, sadistic spawns like that (oh, our kid is going to looooove us). We had to give the news to my fantasy football league so the guys didn't think Wife was some evil wench who leaves her husband with his mother in law at the hospital so she can kick back with 10 dudes in her house downing brewskies - my brewskies - and munching on corn nuts- my corn nuts.

But now its out and we're enjoying all the newness something like this brings, i.e. doctor visits where I get to stand back while Wife has all the fun, ice cream cravings at 9 p.m. (if it gets later, or crazier - the craving that is - you'll be the first to know), back rubs, foot rubs and bodily sounds that make me proud (I've taught her well). You also may see more posts as I try to hide from the "fun" of having a pregnant Wife roaming the compound's halls searching out her hapless husband for another beat down because he failed to keep the mint chocolate ice cream stock full.

Believe you me, I'll have plenty to write about now. Less midget porn jokes and more ... oh oh, she just realized there's no ice cream (how do I know? there's an empty, gooey box of mint chocolate chip box shoved down to my eyes).

Oh, and don't bother asking: a) if we'll know what the sex in because we won't (it's the last true surprise in life and we want that feeling); and b) what we'll name it (first off, that's Wife's job for the most part, and secondly we don't want to see scrunched faces when you don't like Mario Melvin Melissa or Alyssa Clarissa Melissa). We're keeping that one a secret too. We got pretty good at keeping 'em.